Paper short abstract:

The paper explores how solidarity networks like Quarantined Student- Youth Network in Kolkata provided care to the marginalised communities during the pandemic. By doing so, it defines the framework of inclusive innovation through a politics of care.

Paper long abstract:

The pandemic has exposed the vulnerability, paradox and precarity of urban living more severely on the margins of the rural-urban interface. The inadequacy of the state support was more prominent with the absence of infrastructure of care. Simultaneously, new forms of infrastructure evolved during the pandemic through 'networked mobilisation' of social capital. Civil society's participation outside the state's premise is not new but they reconfigured their participation through solidarity networks. Here solidarity networks have emerged to provide care and support to vulnerable communities. The current paper focuses on one such solidarity network viz. Quarantined Student- Youth Network (QSYN) in Kolkata and explores how a politics of care was operationalised to support marginalised communities. QSYN mobilised resources through crowdfunding and was involved in setting up community kitchens and volunteer-led educational programmes for economically marginalised groups in Kolkata. By adopting the framework of 'inclusive innovation' the paper contributes in two ways. On one hand, it decentres the normative idea of infrastructure and establishes solidarity networks as innovative forms of infrastructure. On the other hand, the paper brings politics of care to the centre of the inclusive innovation framework and opens up possibilities for a nuanced understanding of civil society solidarity networks.